Revive Our Hearts

Dana Gresh: Barbara Rainey says, the holidays are perfect teaching opportunities for families.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I think our children intuitively know that there's something important. Otherwise, why are we celebrating? They they sense that there's some meaning behind this thing called Thanksgiving. There's something important behind this holiday called Christmas.

Dana Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude. For November 10th, 2026, I'm Dana Gresh. Well, believe it or not, in the United States, it's Thanksgiving month. And of course, Christmas isn't far behind for the whole world, which is usually how it works. This time, well, it could be either a roller coaster of busyness or a meaningful time of focusing on Jesus. What will it look like for you? Nancy wants to help you squeeze all of the meaning possible out of the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. Here she is to introduce today's guest.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I was having dinner with some friends in their home the other night. They have four little children, and they said to me in the midst of the conversation, so we are trying to figure out what in the world we can do to keep Christmas Christ centered. And we started talking about all the activities in the weeks ahead and with their little children how to make it not all about getting gifts, but about giving in Christ. And I was so glad to have that conversation as a preparation for the conversation we're having today with my long time friend Barbara Rainey.

Barbara, welcome to Revive Our Hearts.

Barbara Rainey: Thank you, Nancy. It's great to be here.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And uh you are like the queen of making holidays special and meaningful. And I've followed you over the years as you've tried to invest in families and uh kind of sounded a trumpet for uh not just letting holidays be meaningless or secular, but having them be really Christ centered. So it's just so timely as we're heading into Thanksgiving now and these next several weeks for so many families are going to be um just uh you know a a lot of activity running around and then you end up you know January 1st saying, what happened? What did we do?

And we're exhausted and broke and at each other's throats. And uh so I'm so thankful that you're going to be able to help us as we talk over the next few days, think through what we can do as individuals, as families to really have a meaningful uh holiday season. So Barbara, you're a mother of six grown children. And now, how many grandchildren is it?

Barbara Rainey: It's a bunch of kids.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: A bunch of kids. What so you've had a lot of holiday celebrations, a lot of Thanksgivings and Christmases with your family. What first got you thinking about how to make those holidays really a significant time in your family's life? Well, I first started thinking about this when I was a mom and I had a house full of kids and my kids were running around and they were all excited about the holidays. And they would hear from their friends all about Santa Claus and all of these different things. And I remember thinking, no wait, it's not all about Santa Claus.

How can I teach my children that it's all about Jesus? And so we tried some different things through the years, but we never I never found personally as a mom the kinds of resources, the kinds of products, the the things that would help me communicate the depth of truth that I wanted to communicate to my children. About the most we were able to do was make the manger scene the center point of Christmas. That was the focal point of the decorations that we put up. And we worked really hard um Dana and I did to help our children focus on giving and what they were giving to one another and to us and to whomever, rather than on what they were getting.

But as far as having something that helped me teach my children who Jesus was and why he was born, why he came, the importance of that, I couldn't find anything that helped me communicate that in a way that my children could understand. And a lot of the reason that I didn't do anything then is cuz I was just so busy being a mom. I was so overwhelmed like most moms are today. I was overwhelmed with Christmas and the parties at school and things that had to be done. And for me to take the time as a mom and create something that I could do with my kids just wasn't going to happen.

And so now in my empty nest years, I'm really enjoying creating products and resources that moms and dads can use during the holidays to teach their children the truth about Christ. Things that I wish I had had. And it's it's just really been a delight to be able to do this.

Barbara Rainey: Well, and you have produced some beautiful resources. And what I love about them is not just that they're beautiful to look at, but they are accompanied by great teaching tools and getting families into the word. But now we've got Thanksgiving right on us. And that's become a pretty secularized holiday as well. And I know when your kids were growing up, you put a lot of focus on the attitude of gratitude and how to use Thanksgiving as a time to really express gratitude to the Lord and uh to each other. Take us back to those years when your children were little and what did Thanksgiving look like in your home?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Well, I remember again, this is another holiday when I wanted to communicate to my children the truth of what it was all about, which is being thankful and being grateful. And I have discovered through the years that holidays are really prime teaching times for families. I think our children intuitively know that there's something important. Otherwise, why are we celebrating? They they sense that there's some meaning behind this thing called Thanksgiving. There's something important behind this holiday called Christmas and so forth.

Barbara Rainey: And it's more than just a day off from school.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Exactly. And so I think their hearts are perhaps more open than at other times of the year in the ordinary dailiness of life. And I sensed that about my children. I sensed it was true about me. And so it's it's a teachable moment that I think parents all too often rush by because they don't know what to do. They don't know how to connect with their kids on a meaningful level. They want to. I think all parents want to, but they don't know how. So I began um years ago. Our youngest was probably only two or three at the time, but I um because I'm a history major in college and I love history and I love our heritage of of our country.

I found some stories that I could read to my children that would teach them more about what the holiday meant and why we celebrate Thanksgiving in this country. So let's talk about who the pilgrims were because we just assume people know this, but many don't. Where did they start and how did they end up wanting to come to this country?

Barbara Rainey: Well, the pilgrims were a group of people who actually were Englishmen and women and children uh who came from England. They were being persecuted in the Church of England because they wanted to worship freely. And so they first fled to Holland. During that time, they began to see the influence of the secular society in Holland. Their children they felt were being corrupted by the the loose standards in the Dutch society. And they thought this, we may be free to worship, but this environment's not healthy for our children. Maybe God would have another place for us to go.

And so the process began of praying, where would you have us go, Lord? And the answer was America.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And yet in spite of the fact that their goals were so noble and faith based, the trip they took over on the Mayflower was far from easy.

Barbara Rainey: The conditions on the ship were very very cramped. They didn't have individual cabins or state rooms. Exactly. They encountered a very very severe storm which cracked the main beam on the ship that had to be repaired.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: This was no cruise liner.

Barbara Rainey: All of those delays left them um running out of food. People were getting sick uh from the voyage. It was really I think beyond our comprehension what kind of conditions they lived in.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So when they finally arrived in the new world, it was the second week of November 1620

Barbara Rainey: That's right. In today's thinking, when you arrive somewhere, the trip is over and you you have a home or a hotel or something waiting for you. And if you can just stop for a second and picture these pilgrims arriving after two months at sea, they were exhausted. They were worn out. Many of them were sick. And they stepped on shore and there was nothing. No homes, nobody to greet them.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And so they began to construct homes. And those homes were not the kind of homes we enjoy today by and large.

Barbara Rainey: The the first structure that they built was what they called a meeting house. And it was the public place where they gathered for meetings or for church and worship. That 's what they built first. Um they had several setbacks. The roof caught on fire and all of this was going on in the middle of the winter in December and January. So it was quite an ordeal uh for them to endure.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And then they had a lot of sickness that first winter as well.

Barbara Rainey: That's right. Starting in January, they began to get sick. And many of them began to die. And at one point Governor Bradford wrote in his journal that they were dying two and three a day. To me, it's a wonder that any of them survived at all. So it was not only difficult, but it was must have been incredibly sad.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Well, let's fast forward a little bit. We come through that first horrible winter. God is gracious. There are those who die off, but there are those who are preserved. They develop peaceful relationships with many of the Indians. But then we come to the first harvest, October 1621. And William Bradford, who's the 30 year old governor of the colony there, declares that Plymouth should now hold a Thanksgiving festival and invite their new Indian friends. Describe for us what that first festival was like.

Barbara Rainey: Well, William Bradford was a very strong believer and had great faith in God. And he he understood that their survival was only because of God. And so he he suggested that they have a day of Thanksgiving. And at that day of Thanksgiving, they uh invited the Indians to come and join them um because one of their goals was to be on very good terms with the Indians, to be friends, to reach out to them and to share the love of Christ with them. And so the first Thanksgiving was a time for the for both people groups to come together and to celebrate.

And of course, they celebrated in a very different ways. But the pilgrims wanted to honor God and give him thanks.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And so they came together and before eating, they did what they had made a habit of doing not only in the good times, but also in the hard times thanking God.

Barbara Rainey: That's right. The pilgrims had a habit which we would do well to adopt as well, of giving thanks always in all circumstances, good and bad. And this was one of the good ones. And so that before they ate, they began by giving thanks to God for all that he had done and the ways he had provided. And it it was a wonderful time of collectively giving thanks and praise to God for his abundant goodness to them.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Mhm.

Barbara Rainey: So I would just read those stories to my kids. Uh Dennis and I would take turns, but we would read them around actually the breakfast table. We didn't do it around the turkey and the dressing and all of that because that was when we gathered with extended family. And there was just too many people, too much chaos. And so we did the our little um our little Thanksgiving morning service, so to speak, around breakfast just with our immediate family.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And that was a tradition in your home for years and years.

Barbara Rainey: Well, it started and became a tradition um because I felt like I was doing something to impart truth to my kids. And I felt like we were teaching them something about gratitude by doing that, by having that little family breakfast where we read the stories and then we each each person had a card or a sheet of three ring notebook paper. It didn't really matter what it was. And each of us would write down five things for which we were thankful.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And did you do this before you ate or after or

Barbara Rainey: No, we did it before cuz I always made this big breakfast casserole. And um while it was baking in the oven, we would sit at the table, read the stories, and fill out our cards. And then we would each go around the circle of the table taking turns sharing what we were thankful for we what we had written down.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Was it something like from the past year or

Barbara Rainey: Yeah. Mhm. Name five things that you're thankful for from this past year.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And the the little ones did this too?

Barbara Rainey: Yeah. And what's really fun is I have the very first one that Lara, our youngest, did when she was about three. It was a piece of three ring notebook paper with lines all over it. And just these crayon scribbles all over it. But I remember I must have said to her, what are you thankful for, Lara? Cuz I in my handwriting over the scribbles, she would point to this one scribble and she said, my blankie. So I wrote my blankie. What else are you thankful for? My family, you know.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Sweet.

Barbara Rainey: And so I have that. It's one of my favorite things. So over the years, we've collected a whole scrapbook full of cards. And so for the past 20 some odd years, I have cards from every Thanksgiving where we have recorded what we are thankful for over the past year. And of course, as our children grew older, their uh statements of gratitude became more meaningful, more profound um because they understood more what what it was all about. And so those cards have become a real treasure um to us.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Did you ever find that at certain ages that some of the children weren't so eager to participate in this?

Barbara Rainey: Oh of course. Yes. I mean kids are always going to give you the eye roll. I mean it's especially in the teenage years. Or they may just be having a bad day and they go, do we have to do this again? But moms and dads have to persevere because moms and dads are in charge, not the kids. And if you let the kids dictate it, it'll never happen. And so it's a by faith exercise. So much of parenting is a by faith exercise. And trying to do something meaningful at Thanksgiving and Christmas and the other holidays is also a by faith exercise.

And I'm saying to my kids, you need to learn about gratitude. I'm not literally saying those words, but in my heart, I know what's best for them. They like I need to learn about being grateful. And so we're going to do this whether you enjoy it or not. And so some of those years when they were not too eager to participate, they might write a one word answer, God, family, friends. And so it's it's a Yeah. They didn't really want to think it through, but that's okay. I mean it it's who they are, it's where they are.

And it's a process of growing together as a family and allowing them to be in a funk of their in a funk. But you don't stop because your child's in a funk or because they're giving you the eye roll. Because you as a parent know that this is important. And over time, what's really interesting and I just realized this this year um because we have done this every year for Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving has become the holiday um that is most important to our family, mo- much more so than Christmas because Thanksgiving is the one where we all, our immediate family gathered every year and where we had that meaningful exchange about what we were thankful for.

And that experience has um cemented us in a way that simply watching football and feasting on turkey would never have done. So

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And you do those things too?

Barbara Rainey: Yeah, we do those things too. Oh yeah, we do because when we get together with the extended family later in the day, that's when we have our big turkey dinner and we all watch football in the in the evening and on on into the next day cuz all of our kids by then were in starting to go to college and that was important to them. And we watched it with them.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: By the way, back to breakfast. Uh the breakfast casserole was called

Barbara Rainey: Well, actually there are two. One is company French toast and the other one is just an egg casserole.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Okay.

Barbara Rainey: So we got some protein. We had to have some protein.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: We're putting those recipes up on our website. Our listeners can go there, go to reviveourhearts.com and maybe even when you get to Thanksgiving, you may want to make one or both of those casseroles. And uh certainly you may want to take the idea about having each person go around the table and write down or express things that they're grateful for. I'm curious now that your children are grown and most of them are married and have their own families. Are any of them continuing that tradition?

Barbara Rainey: I think they are. You know, I don't know for sure um because so often a lot of them come home. And so we're just continuing to do it at our house. Our kids come home for Thanksgiving more than they do for Christmas. So on the Thanksgiving holidays when they're not there, I'm not 100% sure what they're doing.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: So when they are with you, then you've got grandchildren doing it too.

Barbara Rainey: Yes, we do. And so I've got a stack of cards now that we go through every Thanksgiving. But I think the tradition is cemented enough in their experience that when they stop coming home, I think they'll be doing it.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Yeah. Now I seem to remember something about kernels of corn.

Barbara Rainey: Well, one of the stories that I read um to the kids is a is a story that that can't be proven historically, but the tradition tells us that on that winter, the first winter um that the pilgrims spent in the Massachusetts colony, what became the Massachusetts colony, that their their food rations ran out. And so Governor Bradford and the other leaders decided that if they were going to survive the winter when they obviously couldn't grow anything and there were no stores to be had, there was no place to go buy food, all that they had was what they could catch um on the end of a fishing pole in the bay.

Um the the food supplies that they did have would have to be rationed. And tradition says that each person was limited to five kernels of corn. And so we on Thanksgiving morning when we sit down while the casseroles are baking, everyone has five kernels of corn on their plate. So as we go around the circle sharing what we're thankful for, we each drop a kernel of corn in the little basket and then read number one off of our list. And then it goes around two, three, four, and five.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: And I think those symbols can be so important.

Barbara Rainey: I think they can too.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Nothing huge about a kernel of corn, but it's it's a word picture. It's a picture in a child's mind that that is going to stay with them.

Barbara Rainey: No. Yeah. I agree. I think it's good for kids to look at that. And whether or not they literally had five kernels of corn or not, it's a good reminder for them to go, wow, they didn't have much even if it was 10. And it's hard to sustain life on so little. And yet the stories um that they wrote, Governor Bradford and others wrote about how they continued to praise God and thank him even though they had almost nothing to eat. And even though many people were dying from disease, no one died of starvation. And it's so remarkable to me that in the midst of such harsh difficult circumstances, these people every day were praising God.

And so it's a wonderful wonderful lesson to cement in the minds of kids. And so I we have read those stories every Thanksgiving morning for over 20 years now. And my kids know them by heart. And now the grandkids are starting to know them. And so if you skip a line, the grandkids go, you forgot about the whatever. And and I love that that they know those stories so well because that can be a reminder to them that if they can be thankful in those harsh conditions, then maybe I should be thankful in my situation that's not nearly as difficult.

I hope that you will really seek the Lord about whatever your season of life is, how this Thanksgiving can be a uh particularly celebrative and thankful time for you. My mother years ago, many many years ago, she had a beautiful singing voice and she made a Thanksgiving CD singing songs of that season. And it it used to it was you know cassette tape. I've now of course got it on CD. And one of my Thanksgiving traditions is I play that CD um not every year, but often. And of course the Psalms are so full of uh gratitude Psalms, thankful Psalms.

And what a time whether you're by yourself or you and your mate or a roommate or a family to read some of these scriptures, Psalm 103, bless the Lord, oh my soul, all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits. So in the hurry and scurry of whatever is going on in your household uh this week, what a great time to recount the Lord's benefits. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done. And and and even as I say that I realize that um Barbara in your family and in mine and in any life, there are seasons when Thanksgiving falls at a hard time when maybe there's just been the loss of a loved one or there's somebody not at the place at the table that they would have been, maybe a prodigal son or daughter or uh maybe your eyes are more filled with tears than than with joy this Thanksgiving.

Uh but then what a time in the midst of the tears and the loss to lift our eyes up and say, oh Lord, you are still faithful. You are still merciful. Your your faithfulness towers over us as the scripture says. Your your loving kindness endures forever. And so in even those sad times, we offer up a sacrifice of Thanksgiving. And I hope that whether it's a happy or sad time that you will be um counting your blessings and giving thanks to the Lord. And what a great way to be training and discipling your children.

Dana Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been talking with Barbara Rainey about how we can approach the holiday season. I really hope this conversation is inspiring you to focus on what you're thankful for. May God give you grace to praise him through whatever situation you might be in. And if that situation is a tearful one, would you let us pray for you? You can submit a prayer request at reviveourhearts.com/prayer. We want to encourage you to keep cultivating a grateful heart with the new Revive Our Hearts wall calendar. Its theme this year is wonder of the word. The design is beautiful with watercolor art from our dear friend Sierra Dear King.

For 13 months, you'll flip each page to reveal an inspiring quote from Nancy that just encourages you to soak in scripture. We hope it helps you stay grateful and grounded in God's truth throughout the next year. When you make a donation of any amount to Revive Our Hearts, you'll be able to request this wall calendar. It's our way of thanking you for supporting the ministry. Your gift really is making a difference in the lives of women, women like Maria. She's a homeschooling mom of eight and lives in New Mexico. She recently called and left this message.

Maria: I just am so thankful for Revive Our Hearts. Some days I feel like I'm drowning in responsibilities, but you guys help point my eyes up that I can look at the Lord and see his goodness and his faithfulness to me and to my family that I don't have to worry so much about my kids and the ways that I fail them every day. But I can trust in the Lord and know that he's going to get us to a good place and finish the work that he started in us. I shared many Revive Our Hearts podcasts with my kids and my husband because it's been so impactful for me.

And I just enjoy it so much and figure that they can get something out of it too. So thank you for what you do.

Dana Gresh: Mm and thank you for sharing that, Maria. And when you give to Revive Our Hearts, you're partnering with us to point women like Maria to the truth and hope of the gospel. Visit reviveourhearts.com if you'd like to make a donation today or call us at 1-800-569-5959. And don't forget to ask for the Revive Our Hearts wall calendar when you do. Join us again tomorrow as Nancy and Barbara continue this discussion on how to approach the holidays. We'll talk about what we can do over these next weeks to guard our own hearts and those of our families.

We want to celebrate in a meaningful way what Christmas, this holy day, this holiday is all about. So join us again tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts. This program is a listener supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.